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8onal writes: "C|Net is reporting that Oracle CEO Larry Ellison has followed through with his threat, I mean promise, to assist with Uncle Sam's crimefighting efforts. "...Ellison said he has delivered Oracle's 9i database management software to a U.S. government agency for national security, but he declined to give further details, such as which agency or for what usage." Seeing as how he has already supplied the CIA with software, I bet it went to another 3-letter group."

I wake up and still in a haze I check/. to find a headline containing "Oracle" "Donates" and "Big Brother." So I assume that Oracle is donating software to help children's charities... only to be brought back into the cynical reality when I read the article and realize the Orwelian reference. Too bad

it's probably a joke, but M$ will cash in if ppl listen to this [modernhumorist.com]:
Subject: Fwd: Please participate - satellite project

Help me spread the word about this advisory from NASA. On Thursday night at 9 PM Eastern time, a satellite photo of the United States will be taken, showing our nation united.

If you own a PC-compatible laptop, NASA has requested that you purchase Microsoft's new Windows XP operating system and install it onto your computer. The process is simple and should take about an hour. It's Microsoft's best operating system ever and lets you get more out of the Internet!

Take the laptop outside at 9 PM, start up Windows XP, and hold the "Start" screen up to the sky to symbolize our new "start" at coming together and fighting terrorism. Visit microsoft.com for more on how you can eXPerience more!

Pssshhh, is all I can say (thanks to a speech impediment I developed after teasing some rather aggressive Gerbils)

As long as we're guessing, how about the INS? Lord knows those fucksticks could certainly use the help.

And it'd be consistent with Ellison "[declining] to give further details, such as which agency or for what usage".

At the INS, I'd bet the usage would be "Put it in the mailroom for six months. Have an agent take it from the mailroom and put it on the shelf sometime in spring of 2002. Have another agent wipe the dust off the box in 2004. Take the box off the shelf and try to install it on a 4.77 MHz PC/XT in 2007. (Side project: Install a CD-ROM for the PC/XT. Should be done by 2011.) When the installation program reports "not enough RAM" sometime in 2018, write a glowing report to Congress about the wonders of the ongoing INS modernization programme, and how, Real Soon Now, INS will finally be able to stop Bad Guys and illegal aliens from getting into (and staying in) our country, if it weren't for all those goddamn legal aliens we're still spending all our time trying to get rid of through interminably long delays in their paperwork."

Slashdotters can moderate this as (+1, Funny). INS employees will probably moderate it as (+1, Informative).